Beetle engine cover uncovered

Pueblo, Mexico--Viewers seem to have either a love affair with the new Volkswagen Beetle, or they hate it. No matter what the opinion, however, the new version of the old standard has its pluses, particularly from a materials standpoint.

Take the engine cover, for example. The material used to develop the cover, a 10% glass-fiber, 20% mineral-reinforced resin, was specifically formulated for under-the-hood applications. That material, Akulon(reg) K223-HGM24 nylon 6 supplied by DSM Engineering Plastics (Evansville, IN), provides the stiffness, high-temperature resistance, and surface appearance VW demanded for the covers.

In addition, the nylon 6 is color-matched to meet stringent VW standards. This eliminated the need for post-production painting. Bocar Plastics, S.A. de C.V. (Lerma, Mexico), molds the covers.

Industrial workplaces are governed by OSHA rules, but this isn’t to say that rules are always followed. While injuries happen on production floors for a variety of reasons, of the top 10 OSHA rules that are most often ignored in industrial settings, two directly involve machine design: lockout/tagout procedures (LO/TO) and machine guarding.

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